The Speck

There are those who wish to belittle the importance of humanity as 'a speck on a speck on a speck (on a speck)'. In short, in a vast, expanding universe, we're tiny, unimportant nothings.

I never found this a convincing argument. For starters, it actually encourages us to not take the entirety of the universe seriously. Alien worlds, alien lives? Speck on specks on specks (on specks) too. Each as tiny and unimportant as us. Take that, SETI.

Even in earthly terms, size isn't the keystone. A Giant Redwood is a magnificent tree. But it isn't human. It isn't self aware. It isn't able to consider its place in creation. It also far overshadows we mere humans. Yet it's asinine to argue that a tree is superior to a person, or a person unimportant merely because the tree is larger. 

In short, size, mass and relative geography aren't the end all be all. Moral value and moral virtue are not in them. They're just there. But individual human beings? We're aware that we're here. And we can do something about that.

Infinite monkeys

I will go on the record as saying that I don't believe that there is other intelligent life, indeed that there is any life at all, elsewhere in the galaxy. That is not etched in stone, for if the universe is huge and expanding as we're told then other life is not of necessity out of the question. Still, that old saw, what with the sprawling and expanding nature of the universe there must be intelligent life besides our own, isn't really a convincing argument. Space and time do not automatically mean that other life forms can or will develop. I do not believe that infinite monkeys hammering on infinite typewriters must produce Shakespeare.

Honesty about our experience is that nothing else is there. We've found no hard and fast evidence of life in the local planets and solar systems, nor have we discovered anything notable in what other worlds have been identified elsewhere. It would be more logical at this point to assume that the more worlds without life, the less likely that there are in fact worlds with it. Further, why is it so outlandish to think that maybe, just maybe, we were touched by the Divine for a very singular purpose? Perhaps the rest of creation is here simply to help us appreciate the depth and power of the Supreme Being. Personally I find that a comfortable thought. I don't gaze upon the night sky and think how small I am. I look at it and think what a marvel creation is, and how wonderful that we have been a part of it.

Yet if there is alien life, it isn't as though such a find would alter what should be our proper view of things. If there are intelligent aliens, they would have been created by the same God. They would face the same issues which we do: seeing to their needs, their daily bread, and considering their responsibilities to their fellow creatures and to whomever else exists. In short, postulating alien life is interesting as an academic device. But would any such discoveries be, dare I say (I do so love puns), Earth shattering?

Of course not. So keep looking, if that's you life's work, and I will readily concede my error if proved wrong. But don't make it too much of a mission. There's an awful lot of work on our world which could be as rewarding. Indeed, if you want to get to know others and make lives better, there's plenty for you to do around here.

We've found more worlds where there might be life!

NASA is today supposed to make a jarring announcement about other worlds and the possibility of life on them. Okay, I suppose. But I am not terribly impressed at the idea.

I will go on the record as saying that I don't believe that there is other intelligent life, indeed that there is not any life at all, elsewhere in the galaxy. That is not etched in stone, for if the universe is huge and expanding as we're told then other life is admittedly not out of the question. Still, that old saw, what with the sprawling and expanding nature of the universe there must be intelligent life besides our own, isn't really a convincing argument. Space and time do not automatically mean that other life forms can or must have developed.

For starters, our immediately experience is that nothing else is there. We've found no hard and fast evidence of life in the local planets and solar systems, nor have we discovered anything notable in what other worlds have been identified elsewhere. It would be more logical at this point to assume that the more worlds without life, the less likely that there are in fact worlds with it. Further, why is it so outlandish to think that maybe, just maybe, we were touched by the Divine for a very singular purpose? Perhaps, only perhaps, I will allow, the rest of creation is here simply for our marvel, to appreciate the immensity of the Supreme Being? There is certainly no law of physics which states there must be life out there somewhere.

Yet if there is, it isn't as though such a find would alter what should be our proper view of things. If there are intelligent aliens, they would have been created by the same God. They would face the same issues which we do: seeing to their needs, their daily bread, and considering their responsibilities to their fellow creatures and to whomever else exists. In short, postulating alien life is interesting as an academic device. But would any such discoveries be, dare I say (I do so love puns), Earth shattering?

Of course not. So keep looking, if that's you life's work, and I will readily concede the error if proved wrong. But don't make it too much of a mission. There's an awful lot here on our world which could be as rewarding. Indeed, if you want to get to know others and make lives better, there's plenty of them around here for your entertainment.

Pope Francis and the little green men

Pope Francis is at it again. When asked if he would baptize an extraterrestrial life form, he said he would if they wanted it. Where he comes up with these odd thoughts is simply alien to many. You can read more here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2626889/Pope-Id-baptise-Martians-arrived-asked-Catholic-leader-says-green-men-allowed-church.html

All right, the groan is well deserved. Still, what the Holy Father has said is perfectly in line with Church teaching and perfectly contrary to what many earthlings think about life elsewhere in the Universe. All of creation was created by same God. Therefore (and understand here that we are speaking within a broad philosophy with a tinge of theology as well) any other sentient, self aware life would face all the challenges we on Earth fight with every day. They would need food, clothing, and shelter, to name a few, and would struggle as we do in obtaining these necessaries. They would as well need the same God we do.

This should thoroughly astound the non or irreligious among us who say that discovering life somewhere else would stand religion on end. This means that even 'green men, with a long nose and big ears' as the Pontiff quipped, would need and deserve baptism. 'Any entity - no matter how many tentacles, it has has a soul...' as Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno said, would be eligible for baptism.

But the SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Life, if successful, would turn religion upside down.

Only for those who choose not to understand religion.

Life, the Universe, and Everything.

The most inhabitable planet ever has been discovered! This news will be important until the next most inhabitable planet has been discovered. That should be in about a week.

Kepler-186f circles a red dwarf (and not the BBC series, you idiot) star 500 light years from Earth, and it's rocky. Very rocky. But it's in the Goldilocks zone (the area far enough away from a star that a planet won't be too hot year near enough for it to be warm enough to possibly support life) and might possibly maybe have water. Yet it's quite cool and 'probably basks in an orange-red glow'.

Yep. So have many of our cousins. And we similarly have glown (glown?) on far too many occasions ourselves.

Will ya stop already about finding life on other planets? From 500 light years away (the distance light would travel in 500 years at 186,000 miles per second; Second, we add for dramatic emphasis) Kepler-186f is one hell of a long way away. We'll never actually see nor interact with it.

But it might house life. Some kind of life anyway.

Ah, life. Spoken as though any kind of life equals human, sentient, self aware life. You're a bacteria? You're life! We're equals! You're like us. So tell me, what is the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything?

Well, it's not merely finding any old kind of life on any old kinda planet. Our own world is teeming with life; we know this. It is not conjecture. It is not wishful thinking. There's no reason to be particularly excited that such life might exist somewhere else in the universe. It would be on the same moral plane as we find ourselves, especially if such life is sentient. It simply is not critical to our own scientific or philosophic, nay even to our theological, knowledge that other planets might have life.

We're not saying not to look. We're not saying that it wouldn't be interesting to talk to someone from 'out there' if that someone exists. But it would not be the most stunning event in our history. We would reserve that for something like curing cancer, thank you very much. All else would be no different than finding another organism right here at home, or when people of our own Earth came across other humans they did not previously know existed. We need to stop talking as though life, the universe, and everything would really be any different should we be able to converse with a Keplerian.

Life on Earth against Life Elsewhere

Ah, science. It wants so much. One of those things it lusts after is one live cell, any kind of cell, on another world. That would prove so very much, wouldn't it?

Ah, the western world. It wants so much. One of those things it lusts after is one live cell, any kind of cell, on another world. That would surely put religion to shame, wouldn't it? It would show that we aren't alone in the universe, and put all those religious zealots to shame, wouldn't it? Just one cell is all it would take.

The rabble in the west and the vaunted pseudoscientific community have something in common then: they each want to find life somewhere else but on Earth. One cell, one wee tiny microscopic organism, and that would put to an end all the egotism of so many tiny Earthlings. One cell of life would mean that much to them.

But the importance of two cells, well, hold on a minute, mister. Two cells within a woman's womb here on Earth, and the game changes. Dramatically. Two such cells, and they must be destroyed, if the woman, one lone person, says so. Life somewhere else, life which is also little more than abstraction (at least right now) would be of infinite value. This means, what? A second extraterrestrial cell would hold no inherent value at all? Add a second cell here on our own planet, where the only life we really know to exist exists, and all that infinite grace is gone if the individual wills it. Would it be gone if found somewhere else, even, horrors, in a bit of two celled life on some other planet inconveniently found in an alien organism? Should that not, at one person's insistence, be destroyed?

This is why we cannot respect popular science. This is why we treat so much of the western world with derision. They are of dual personalities and at war within themselves. And why? Because of one lone cell projected to be out 'there' 'somewhere'. One theoretical cell that means more to them than life on Earth, indeed means more to them than any real multicelluar life right here, right now. Real known life means nothing to them. Life in their imagination, though, means everything.

Ah, science. How many cells at work came up with this paradox?

Hawking May Be Right About Something

Eminent scientist Stephen Hawking has expressed concerns that extraterrestrial life may not be what we assume. Aliens may be dangerous rather than charitable and giving, he asserts in an upcoming Discovery Chanel special. If nothing else, cultures advanced enough to reach Earth may have an effect similar to the discovery by Europeans of the Americas: devastating to the so discovered.

Other scientists disagree: many believe a sophisticated alien race reaching our world could only be good.

Truth be told, we really don't know what to expect. Who's to say aliens would be bad? Or good? It's all simply presumption. That said, the only honest appraisal of contact with any given extraterrestrial life form would be the same as with meeting any given stranger on Earth: approach with caution, olive branch extended yet with the proper amount of reserve to counter their actions and intentions if need be.

Our science fiction has had a great propensity to view potential alien life as superior to ours in almost every way. It is good to see a prominent scientist point out that that may not be the case.

In the end it may all be conjecture. Presuming that other lives on other planets would face the same daunting tasks of physics as we do, interstellar travel itself may be little more than science fiction. The folks at SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, seem to think that the best we can hope for is hearing them through radio transmissions. That sounds like the most reasonable prediction on the matter.

In short, the possibility of sentient life other than us in the universe is fun to discuss but nothing is likely to come of it. Still, it is good that Professor Hawking has sought to balance the scales. There's no good assuming that technical superiority means morally advancement.

Life on Other Planets

We have reached the point, it seems, when almost every day an astronomer from somewhere has found a new planet. Most of them appear to be gas giants along the lines of Jupiter and Saturn in our own solar system. Yet there are some which, even from as far away as they are to us, might be Earth like enough to sustain life as we know it. That is, sentient life, beings who are as self aware as ourselves.

That these are exciting discoveries cannot be disputed. But where we have an issue about them is in the interpretation over how finding other life in the galaxy would shake our core beliefs here on our own good Earth. It has been said that we would have to completely rethink our philosophies, and even our religion, should there be other life forms similar to ours somewhere else in the universe.

Why? Would not the same God have created them too? Why would they not be as subject to sin and failure, the whole universe being imperfect, as we are? Further, why should we presume that the challenges they face aren't any different from ours? Getting food and shelter, worrying about how the kids are growing up; why should alien daily life be so much different than ours?

The best guess is that they would still have personal, political, and social struggles akin to ours. Granted, they may be superior or inferior to us in myriad ways and forms, but there is simply no reason to think that the cultures of another world would be, at their core, significantly different from ours. The whole science fiction array which we have been exposed to over the years, the presumption that they would be either smarter and better than us, or have greater technology and be a conquering race with it, is most likely exactly that: presumption and fantasy for the sake of exciting books and movies. We have no real reason to believe that even their science would not be all that different from ours, even if a little ahead of or behind our discoveries. Would the laws of physics be different elsewhere in creation?

So while finding Earth-like planets is certainly exciting, it should not change our outlook on the relationship between God and Man. It only means that He has seen fit to share Himself more generally than some may have thought. There would still be the animal desires competing with the spiritual appetite of those people. There would still be the happiness along with the drudgery of daily life. If we do ever find sentient life beyond our world, they will almost certainly be like us, at least in temperament if not in appearance. That may not be particularly exciting, once the veneer of newness wears off. Many of our scientists don't seem to want anything less than the fantastic. That speaks only of their prejudices, and we can learn from that without even venturing to Alpha Centauri.